A Week of Two Halves in Lanzarote, Canary Islands - Part One

Apologies for being quiet here on the blog. The week before last was a bit of a count down to our holiday, so I was busy packing, working, etc. and I never like to discuss online when exactly we are away from home, as you just can't be too careful these days.

We flew out of the UK early on Mothers' Day. Our destination was Lanzarote in the Canary Islands. We've been to several of the Canary Islands before, but never Lanzarote, so we were excited to visit somewhere new to us.

I had a bit of a nasty surprise as we were waiting for our flight. I realised that I'd forgotten to take down my online listings, when I got an email telling me I had sold an item. I was mortified and I had to message the buyer and hope they wouldn't be too upset, as I wouldn't be able to post their item out on time. I haven't yet received a response, so I'm hoping they are okay with it.

That wasn't a great start, but the flight went okay. When we got to Lanzarote, it was a shock how warm and sunny it was. I knew that it would be warmer than the UK, but I was still surprised at how much hotter it was. It instantly felt great to feel the sun on our skin. We collected our hire car and made the 10 minute drive to our villa. Luckily, it was ready early, so we were able to settle straight in. Here are a few pictures from the property:

The villa itself was lovely, Nicer than I'd anticipated, with lots of rooms and outside space and a small swimming pool. It even had two resident budgerigars living in a big cage in the garden. They were so sweet, and very chatty. (I kept a budgie in my late teens and I love them) We unpacked and then a little later headed into the nearby town for a drink and something to eat on the beach front, to take a look around and to do some food shopping. 

The food was lovely, OH and I had lovely big salads. It felt like a world away from London. We had a little drive around the town on the way home, which was very old and pretty in parts and then headed to Aldi to get the basics for our stay. We always love a supermarket shop when we go abroad. I love to see the different foods you can get.

When we got back, OH struck up the BBQ and we chilled later watching the series Daisy Jones and the Six on Amazon Prime, via LB's laptop. We worked our way through it through the week.

On Monday, I spent the morning sat by the pool, which was lovely. The water was a little cold for me to swim, although LB did go in for a dip, but I was happy sat reading my holiday read which was Taylor Jenkins Reid's The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo. It was an entertaining read and it was so lovely to sit by a swimming pool in the sunshine, for the first time in 4 years. We haven't travelled abroad together since before Lockdown. I have to say, that I have really missed how relaxing it is to be out of the UK and in a warm climate, away from your everyday life.

Later on Monday, we headed into town again to wander around the town, shop a little and hire some bikes for the week. We then went to eat out and realised that we'd left our shopping somewhere, possibly at the bike shop in town, which was now closed for 36 hours. 

In addition, when we got back to the villa, we found that there was an issue with the lock on the gate, it had jammed up completely and we couldn't even remove the key. Luckily, we'd got into the property before this happened.

It was too late to do anything that day, so on Tuesday OH called the owner/manager of the villa who came to attend to it, but they couldn't actually resolve it fully that day and had to come back another day to completely change the lock.

We spent Tuesday chilling all day in the villa and then in the evening, OH and I cycled along the coast a little on our rented bikes which was enjoyable, but quite tiring for me, despite it not being far, as there were a few uphill sections.

On Wednesday, after a leisurely couple of hours, sitting by the pool and breakfasting outside, OH and I decided to cycle back into town to the bike shop, to hopefully collect our shopping. It was a nice ride along a lovely coastal footpath and cyclepath.  Unfortunately, when we got there, we were told that our shopping wasn't there.  

We checked a couple of other places we possibly could have left the shopping, but neither had had anything handed in. We were disappointed that nearly £100 worth of sportswear just disappeared into thin air, but we just had to chalk it down to experience.

At this point, we just thought, we need to take stock and not let this ruin the holiday for us.  It was only money and we determined to enjoy the rest of our stay.